Off The Chart

60 weeks in and we're still managing to screw up the recording of the podcast in new and inventive ways. This week's episode sounds very strange due to, ahem, "technical issues", but please stick with it because there's an absolute bombshell about Phil Collins at the end.

This week we're going all the way back to 1980 to look at the state of the UK music charts, while attempting not to get sidetracked by songs about Billy Connolly, underground violence and the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation. Fun and frolics ensue!

This week's podcast investigates the UK charts of 9 March 1984, and then gets distracted by the most unconvincing anti-drugs song ever, the most Irish cows in Wales, and Radio 1's static caravan in Bury St Edmunds.

We're back in 1989 this week, examining the UK charts from this day 31 years ago and getting sidertracked as usual by a punk concept album, Fine Young Cannibals' dodgy restaurant and Holly Johnson's Love Replacement Bus Service.

This week we're looking back at 1983, examining the UK charts and getting sidetracked into discussion of unlikely guest artistes, SAND, and John Lennon's collection of whiskey manufacturers' water jugs.

In this week's Off The Chart podcast, sponsored by Woman's Own magazine, we look at the UK charts from this day in 1987 and end up with a Coronation Street spin-off, a mystery bum and a visit to the Broadcasting Under Manager.

The #32 comedy podcast in Kenya, apparently. This week's podcast looks at the UK charts of 9 February 1981, incorporating Julian's Yoko Ono impression and a plan to "swamp Barnsley with sex emporia".

A look at the UK charts of 2 February 1986, a simpler time when all we had to worry about was Shakin' Stevens' recreational habits, the cloning of Whitney Houston and gargantuan quantities of mustard.

It's our 52nd weekly podcast, and we still haven't done a full year's worth. How does that work? Anyway, join us for a look at the UK charts of 26 January 1982, and stay for a lengthy discussion on Rubik Cube cheats, rubbish acronyms and a word we've never used before.

We're back for another go around the decade, starting at 1988 where a huge '80s band falls apart in court, a record banned in South Africa goes to number 1 in Zimbabwe, and a promising pop career is scuppered by the workers' control of factories.